When brainy engineering students/lovers Adda and Iridian graduate from school with few job prospects, they come to the conclusion that life as inner-solar system pirates will prove far more fruitful than scraping for a paycheck—plus, they already have an in with the pirate crew that has taken over the remote Barbary Station, turning it into an outpost from which they can plunder anyone who dares to come near. Except the legends of riches onboard the station turn out to be just that, and when Adda and Iridian cruise in in a hijacked colony ship, expecting a warm welcome, they are instead quickly conscripted into a war between Barbary’s human population and the malevolent AI that controls it. It seems the computer system responsible for keeping everyone alive has decided that people are a virus that need to be wiped out, and thus far, it has been doing a damn good job of things. Maybe selling out and working for the man doesn’t sound too bad after all.